Friends love this restaurant and eat here whenever they are in Rome, so we went on their recommendation. The setting is elegant, and it was very quiet. The waiter was very nice and good at his job.
We ordered a glass of the house white, and it was so delicious, I wish we'd bought a bottle. For an appetizer, we got the artichoke cooked under a brick. It was so expensive (15 euro) that we tried to make do with one. They split it for us, which was very kind. It was scrumptious, one of the most interesting artichoke dishes we've ever had.
For dinner, we ordered linguine with ragout of fresh fish of the day: baby squid or swordfish. We chose swordfish. Our other dish was gnocchi with lamb. The swordfish ragout was fresh, the pasta was homemade, but the flavor of the sauce was a little strange. I'm not sure if it was strange like gourmet/unusual (maybe an ingredient like Pernod?) or just strange. We ate it but did not love it. But the lamb and gnocchi was phenomenal. The sauce was small pieces of very tender lamb in a light-bodied, yet very rich sauce. There was enough gnocchi to dilute the sauce's richness, making it a perfect dish.
They charge for bread at this restaurant, which made me think the bread must be very special. It says "bread with extra virgin olive oil" on the menu, and it costs 6 euro! So we ordered it. Big mistake. It was a bread basket, and every bread in it was stale and tasted awful. The waiter never brought the olive oil, but we didn't ask because the bread was so dreadful. We asked the waiter to take it off our bill, and he did so without a bad attitude. (They do add 12% service there, and he knew he'd still get his tip.)
So I gave three stars because although the place was nice, and service good, the food was uneven, and also, quite expensive by Roman standards. We spent twice as much as the night before at a pizza/pasta place. But I will say the atmosphere was really nice in comparison. read more